Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Hello! I'm back for a second to share something I put together before T was born, and it's helping me (slowly) figure out how to make it through these loooong days (and nights). I use this weekly planner along with my menu planner to track essential tasks. Both are up on my fridge, where I find myself quite often, and I just slip them inside plastic sheet protectors and write on them in dry-erase marker.

This one's obviously the pre-baby planner (notice how nothing's crossed off?) -- my current one (if I had time to make it) would just have laundry, food and dishes on it as my essential weekly tasks. And I've made a blank one for you to download for free! (The water glasses are to help keep up with drinking enough water -- go ahead and ignore them if you want! Or substitute a bev. of your choice.)

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Sorry for the sporadic posts lately. I'm just too busy ... too busy waiting for this baby to show up! I've decided he's either going to be a major momma's boy, since he doesn't want to leave me yet, or a procrastinator. I know he's only 2 days overdue, which isn't really overdue at all but I feel like I've been waiting FOREVER. But it can't last much longer, can it?

Sheesh. 40 wks and counting ...

So while my parents have been here, we've been trying to keep busy rather than just sit around staring at my (huge) belly. I haven't been doing any cooking, and am usually napping while my mom or mother-in-law is cooking dinner, so I'm not going to be doing any weekend recipes for a while, but they'll be back one of these days. Mom made some cute crib sheets from this Prudent Baby tutorial, and they'd make great baby shower gifts. She also finished the most amazingly cute baby quilt ever, if I can say that (since I designed it). I'll post pics of it this week, I promise.

I've been working really hard. Really.

Dad's been great, and done lots of little dad things, like put a coat of beeswax on the pterodactyl dresser to make it extra glossy and shiny. We've gone for daily walks with Daisy, and my brother's been here for a few days so we've dragged him along. And my favorite project of his has been these really gorgeous cherry wood blocks he made for Thomas. He took scraps of some beautiful curly cherry leftover from a table he made, sanded them and rounded the edges, then gave them three coats of Waterlox (a food-safe, no-VOC finish) and a coat of beeswax. Aren't they gorgeous? He says they'll be just the right size for Thomas to throw at his (hypothetical) little brother.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

A friend of mine has a darling little girly girl who turned 4 last month (and had the most amazing Pinkalicious party to celebrate -- y'all, just look at all that PINK!). For her gift, I remembered seeing a cute little crocheted hat that also could be used as a drawstring purse somewhere on the internet. Of course, I couldn't even come close to finding that somewhere, even with my reference librarian skills (if anyone knows what I'm talking about, let me know!), so I decided to see if I could make one myself.

It was super easy, and I'll give you the basic rundown of how I made it, but I don't have a real pattern -- sorry! I didn't feel comfortable writing up a pattern for a knockoff of someone else's work (um, and I also started and ripped and restarted this so many times I lost track of what I was doing, AND I'm really terrible at writing patterns anyway), but if you know how to crochet, or think you can follow along, I can sort of tell you how I did this.

The circumference is 50 cm for this child's hat -- just figure out what circumference you need and work from there. All abbreviations are U.S. standard.

Using the magic ring method (but you can crochet a chain and join it to start your circle if you prefer), sc 6 and join.

Continue to sc a circle, increasing as you go (sc twice in each sc for 12 sc in the first round, sc twice in every 2nd sc for 18 sc in the second round, etc.) until your circle reaches the desired circumference (50 cm here, or a diameter of about 16 cm -- thank you, middle school geometry).

Sc one more even round (you should have some multiple of 5 for your stitch count), and add one sc at the end before joining the round (this is to set up for your shell pattern).

Work the next rounds evenly in a solid shell stitch (1 sc in 2nd ch from hook, * skip 2 ch, 5 dc in next ch, skip 2 ch, 1 sc in next ch **, repeat * to ** to end of row. Turn). You'll work 8 rounds or so in the shell pattern. The reason you want to use a solid shell stitch instead of an open one is so all your Bonny Belle LipSmackers don't fall out when you use this as a purse!

At this point, you're going to work a quick mesh round for the drawstring to pass through. Chain across the dips in the shell, then sc in the center dc of the shell. Then chain across, etc.

Work 1-3 more rounds of shell (until the hat is the length you want), and fasten off.

Thread a ribbon or braided yarn or whatever through the mesh and tie in a pretty bow for the hat. This will be the drawstring of the purse. I also crocheted a little flower (from Stitch'n'Bitch Crochet) and sewed a hairclip to the back of it to use as an embellishment.

make, do, share, be.

"Whereas nonmakers must content themselves with the merely undeniable fact that two times to is four, he rejoices in a purely irresistible truth (to be found, in abbreviated costume, uponthe title page of the present volume)." E. E. Cummings